Posted
by
Soulskillon Thursday November 17, 2011 @01:01PM
from the gaming-in-a-tux dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Desura is a digital distribution platform for video games, focusing on releases from indie developers and mods rather than AAA titles. After a two-month beta period, Desura has launched a Linux client, which supports the installation and patching of games on any Linux distribution. With this release, Desura is the first client to work on both Windows and Linux systems, enabling games to be installed with a click. They're currently in discussions to release the code under the GPL."

Looks like all the game titles are Humble Bundle games. Don't get me wrong, I love the HB games and I think it's great that Linux is getting some gaming love but when I can just download, tar xvfz &&./runme , I don't see the point of this. Are other titles available? Does this mean EA is going to start doing Linux ports through this?

The idea is create something like steam. You can download the game from the developer's website, but having a single interface where you can download, buy, apply mods, manage friends, etc is the point of this. I don't really like the idea of this since it places too much power in a single company (see steam), but there is a demand for it and desura seems a good software that has love for linux. It is already rather big and it looks like it can drive some major games to linux with some more time, so I suppor

and it looks like it can drive some major games to linux with some more time

Hahaha what? Desura will have almost no impact of bringing major games. If there was a market for that Stream for Linux would have already berm released rather than Michael of Phoronix perpetually claiming it's just around the current.

If Steam is ever released for linux it will probably kill desura (or leave it with only indie games forever), but if there is no steam for linux and major game developers have some interest in porting games to linux, an established platform like desura that has an established userbase and such can be the extra incentive they need.

Uhhh, no. Big name game companies aren't going to go through some no-name to distribute their games. They'd develop their own platform, port their platform (EA) or preassure Valve to port Steam. The big game companies WILL NOT use Desura. That is ludicrous fantasy.

So a company that didn't run a digital game distribution platform and went out of business? Wow what a stunning comeback! They were a third party licensor that paid to port games. How is that equivalent to what steam or desura do?

A company that shipped Tribes 2, UT, Quake 3, Railroad Tycoon, SC3000, Civilization, Soldier of Fortune... yes, a no-name company that went out of business, which no big game companies like ID Software or Activision are going to pay attention to, right? Or did you mean only EA counts as a big game company--the Microsoft of Video Games, while these people are just small Apples?

My point is that claiming a business is auto-fail because it's not a big multi-megacorp is like giving the guy who came up with FedEx a fail for having a ridiculous and impossible business plan that involves shit that hasn't been done before; except in this case, we've already seen no-name distributors carry big-name titles.

Why? Companies will use whatever is cheapest and easiest. All services are no-name at the beginning.

If a big game company (Activision, say) wanted to release a game for Linux, they'd set about figuring out what's the easiest way of doing it- standalone, through an existing service, or in partnership with someone like Steam. They'll pick whatever comes out top. No reason why a "no-name" startup like Desura won't be picked, if the price and facilities offered are right.

I have no problem just executing the games without the desura client. Sure you have to dig a little into the file hierarchy to find the binaries, but you can launch the games without even starting the desura client. Offline mode works fine. Sure it's potentially risky as you might get more than one multiplayer service cut off at once, but it's better than steam where they can cut off everything not just multiplayer.

It's a chicken meet egg syndrome. Game developers won't make Linux games because there is no centralized distribution platform, and there is no centralized distribution platform because there are no game developers making games. Ubuntu is trying with the Ubuntu store.... but it's Ubuntu only. Something like Desura is a HUGE step in the right direction. If even one major game developer starts releasing top tier games through Desura, the rest will feel pressure to do the same.

Yes there are. Oil Rush, for example. You can browse the Linux only games by going to the game browsing page [desura.com] and clicking the Tux in the upper right hand corner. The Humble Indie Bundle was popular and came with Desura keys, so a lot of people can test using Desura without having to buy a game straight out from them.

Are other titles available? Does this mean EA is going to start doing Linux ports through this?

I *highly* doubt EA will ever start doing Linux ports and if they did, they'd find a way to bring Origin to Linux to do it. But Desura acts as a game distribute service that goes across Wind

Package management is an excellent thing, but apt-get doesn't work so well with non-free (as in money) software

Somehow I don't see this being more difficult than having a HTTP(S) user:pass for your paid "steam-like" repository. Generate the package list on the fly - the packages are the same, just which appear to be available. Use file permissions to make sure nobody wget anything they shouldn't and it'll be almost like steam. Throw in your standard webshop interface, on purchase you add the package to your user set and file permissions on the server, call apt-get update, apt-get install $game. Patches come via apt-

The only problems with an apt-get framework is that it means you have to add repos for any pool of the downloadables and there is NO management for who gets to download the title. Do keep in mind that the titles are not all FOSS or free as in beer, for that matter. Right now the package managers for the distributions really, really don't have the framework in place for this sort of thing. If it did, I'd be all for it and I'd be helping it grow that way- and this only gets into distributions that do packa

The only problems with an apt-get framework is that it means you have to add repos for any pool of the downloadables and there is NO management for who gets to download the title.

Well, that was what I was saying you could build.

Do keep in mind that the titles are not all FOSS or free as in beer, for that matter.

What part of "after purchase" didn't you read?

Right now the package managers for the distributions really, really don't have the framework in place for this sort of thing.

That I agree, but the package managers wouldn't have to do anything special. Nor would the packagers.

If it did, I'd be all for it and I'd be helping it grow that way- and this only gets into distributions that do packaging like this. What about Gentoo, etc. that don't have a packaging system, per se, in the same sense as Debian and Red Hat have developed?

If you want to download a binary game, it has to work on some binary interface. I don't see how it can work any other way.

Maybe I'll try explaining it to you slooooowly:1. You set up a website foo.com. There you have a store to purchase games.2. Users register at foo.com like user "svartalf" with some password.3. U

Package management is an excellent thing, but apt-get doesn't work so well with non-free (as in money) software

It can. You can easily have custom (ie locked to one user) package lists with secured downloads and pump all that through Deb. It's all HTTP after all; anything you can do on a website you could do with the current apt stack.

It's easy to talk about some of the technicals and none of the logistics or the total technicals. You're oversimplifying this as are all the others talking about doing this thing.

Rather than arguing the subject with you all...I challenge you to IMPLEMENT the thing you're talking to in a manner that it can be secured well enough to make the indie studios and the big labels happy. Why am I challenging you all? Because, like I am doing now, someone did the same thing and I put my money where my mouth was an

1. Give the user a unique repo URL (telling them to add it is the hardest thing here)
2. When their apt hits it for packages.gz, the system looks at their unique identifier and see's which packages they're allowed and sends them the results
3. When they try to download something, the system checks again to see if they're allowed it. If they are, it sends it the package.

when I can just download, tar xvfz &&./runme , I don't see the point of this

I think you just demonstrated (one of) the point(s);

Desura is the first client to work on both Windows and Linux systems, enabling games to be installed with a click

Most people aren't amused with having to first find the download, then download it, unpack it, install it, etc. when there's a shinier option that has already found what you (presumably) want for you and lets you install it with a minimum number of polished UI

Well, considering that none of them have had a tool quite like this (the Steam version that Valve has internally not withstanding...) available, combined with Desura being at least initially Indie-oriented, it's going to lead to the effect you're commenting to there. There's not exactly going to be any EA, Valve (duh!), Square|Enix, etc. titles on there yet. As for them wanting to do them, that might come with time with a service or two like this available to handle things. I know it's going to be a subj

have you looked at the results of all the humble bundles, this year alone.
linux users CONSISTANTLY pay more than their mac or windows counterparts. if memory serves on the humble indie bundle 3 they paid double what windows paid and a quarter more than what mac users paid.
its the non programming equivalent of script kiddies who pirate everything they touch, and i dont see the majority of linux users fitting that.
and unfortunately there is not a FOSS equivalent for everything, especially not games and

I've been beta testing the Linux release for a while now, it's a well designed piece of software!
It's nice having all your indie Linux games in one spot with reviews. It also makes a nice support channel when the games don't run right.
Debian friendly.

Oh boy... the Windows-think people are at it again.Next thing we know, they'll "invent" the concept of "everything is a file".Or brag about their awesome new Linux versions of AutoIt and WinBatch called "ash" and "wbash".

I've been on the Beta as well. It works great, and I found a game that I love. I've become addicted to the game Oil Rush, which I think is still in beta too, but you can buy it on Desura, or directly from the developers, is a really fun game with excellent graphics. It's a tower defense game, I kind of view it as an updated Red Alert, set on the sea, with really fancy graphics and a really fun game play. I'm going to have some friends over this weekend and we're going to try to LAN it. I think it will be a

regardless of your distro? I'm not asking for much, I just want 2d graphics on par with what a Dreamcast or PS2 could do (that's 2d, I don't need 3d, except maybe at Minecraft levels). What I really want is a dev environment / language that enforces packaging, and a guaranteed base system. Linux vendors keep trying to make something like this and failing. I guess what's really needed is something like the Ruby philosophy: convention over configuration. e.g. just pick something for God sakes and go with it,

I suspect so. I've had surprisingly few issues with the scheme I'm using for producing my indie games- I target anything from Debian Sarge forward (some 10+ distributions tested and used by customers so far...) with how I build and package with MojoSetup. Right now, most of the titles are straight ports so they can't be global installs (per user acct installs...but since the games are small and without any DRM, etc...) but I'm going to do a follow on release of all of them to hopefully fix that issue. De

So, is this like steam that can run on linux? I have not heard of this, but supporting linux is worth helping, at least for the idea. I am always super annoyed when I want to play a video game but have to boot into Windows first. (yes I started to try playOnLinux but it wasn't working right)

Heh... It's the Indie community coming up with it's own answers for things, similar to what Valve came up with for Steam so that it can be supported on ALL primary desktop OSes, much like the thinking that the Humble Bundle people have with things. I'm hopeful that I can get to something that will let me start scooping up not just Indie port work on things... It's a piece part of the puzzle that's been kind of missing (Looking at Valve for not trying to get their answer out...and grumbling...) for a bit